This has turned out to be an amazingly fruitful use of my time. Two bags filled with shredded paper and five volumes of The Examined Life down. I really took myself seriously back then and bought expensive, beautifully and seriously bound art books for my whatever this stuff is. BUT there are some treasures in there, too. This one in particular, which I’ve been looking for.
The weeping flute
remembers the riverbed.
The stick beats the drum
“I was once green
a living branch”
The skin on the lute
Trembles
like living flesh.
…If you heard their cries
your heart would shatter
like glass.
Rumi
And, finally… 🤣
“Summer is the season of inferior sledding” - Inuit proverb 
I’m kind of sad that “The Examined Life” is getting shredded. I haven’t gotten to the point of letting go but someday I know I’ll be doing the same thing!
It’s not sad at all. It’s wonderful to shred this shit. The stuff I don’t want to let go of, I’m keeping. It will be the Uber Examined Life or the Ultimate Examined Life or maybe just My Life 😀
I’m enjoying shredding some things of my past that once meant so much to me. Things and writings that I put SO MUCH effort, sweat, tears, overthinking, …I absolutely love Rumi–dying to old self and hopefully making new music. The comic strip made me giggle. Yep!
I truly have enjoyed this project. Basically it says, “I’m not there now, thank GOD.” ❤
YESSSS! And some things, just as in something that happened to me on Sunday (soul-cleaning MAJOR reality hit!) made some of my expunging happen today. I’m sitting with my feet up. They are burning (and my knees, too) for the extra labor it took to rid these things. Whew. Yes, thank GOD! 🤍
The more I toss, the lighter I feel. Good for you, Martha.
Thank you! It’s liberating. ❤
As a bonus, shredded paper makes good compost.
I’ll try not to take that as literary criticism.. (ha ha)
I am not going to ask whether you are going to toss the weeping flute poem or the cartoon. No, don’t tell me.
The cartoon and the flute are both preserved forever on my immortal blog post. 😉